While you lounged around at home eating Christmas cookies and watching reruns of Scrubs during Winter Break, you were bound to miss some important happenings in The Chi. Here’s the top three things you missed while carousing with your high school friends:
3. Mayor Daley uses sports festival to bolster Olympic dreams
Mayor Richard Daley has been promoting the idea of Chicago holding the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. He believes that the spirit and enthusiasm of the Holiday Sports Festival is a key reason that Chicago should host the games.
Many other cities are vying for the privilege, including Doha, Qatar; Tokyo; Madrid; and Baku, Azerbaijan.
2. Prosecutors form excessive force review unit
A new excessive-force review unit is being formed by the Cook County district attorney’s office to examine possible police misconduct and recommend further prosecution if necessary.
This announcement came one day after a jury awarded $12.5 million to the family of an unarmed man shot dead by a police officer in 2003. Police initially alleged Michael Pleasance had been struggling with an officer, but a video later showed that the two had made no physical contact before the shooting.
1. Major identity theft prosecuted
A Morton Grove man was charged Jan. 3 with fraud after police found approximately $60,000 in cash in his closet.
Mohammad Sodagar, of Pakistan, is alleged to have possessed more than 400 credit cards. Police said he spent almost all of his time on the phone or the Internet talking to credit card companies in search of new victims.